Pritchard cited the “murky, nontransparent and in some cases fraudulent supply chain” as the bottom line problem in the digital ad industry, speaking to NYT reporter SapnaMaheshwari at an industry event.

“Ads showing up on objectionable sites, that’s bad,” Pritchard asserted. “Ads showing up to bots, through searching, that’s bad. Ads that you place that don’t really get measured by a third party that validates what’s right — that’s not so good, either. There’s a number of things in the digital media supply chain — even ads that aren’t viewable or close to viewable,” he noted at the time.

Pritchard certainly had his critics and doubters; with consumers spending more time on smart devices than ever, how could any brand – let alone a high-profile one like P&G – afford to cut their digital spend and still reach their audience?

Turns out, most marketers seem to forget one simple thing: time spent on a channel does not determine sales, ROI, effectiveness or receptivity, explains Magazine Media 360.

The post refers to a graphic from Kleiner Perkins 2018 Internet Trends that shows the relationship between time spent on media and ad spend. Their data suggests a gap between time spent on mobile, and percentage of ad spend going to that channel, pointing out an“opportunity” for advertisers to up their mobile spend.

That’s bunk, according to Magazine Media 360, for a number of reasons.

“In the case of P&G, the world’s largest advertiser, CMO Marc Pritchardsaid that the company reduced digital ad spending ‘with several big players’ by 20 percent to 50 percent, and the cuts helped P&G eliminate 20 percent of its ineffective marketing and increase reach by 10 percent,” the article continues.